


Brilliant Friends

by usuallyproperlyhydrated



Category: The Bletchley Circle, The Imitation Game (2014)
Genre: Bletchley Park, F/F, brilliant women, platonic ladyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-25
Updated: 2015-04-25
Packaged: 2018-03-25 17:48:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3819406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usuallyproperlyhydrated/pseuds/usuallyproperlyhydrated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Joan didn’t quite understand Millie’s passion for women, and Millie definitely didn’t understand Joan’s passion for maths, but that didn’t matter. They were friends who supported each other even though they didn’t share all the same interests."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brilliant Friends

**Author's Note:**

> It feels a bit weird to be writing about a fic about someone who isn't fictional, but there you have it.  
> Millie doesn't have a canon surname in Bletchley Circle, so I gave her "Wollstonecraft" in honor of Mary Wollstonecraft.

Millie wasn’t sure what position Joan Clarke held at Bletchley—she couldn’t just ask and she wasn’t stupid enough to snoop—but she assumed it was an important one, as Joan spent a lot of time dashing between huts and regularly went out to drink with some of the most celebrated cryptographers in Britain.

It didn’t matter what she did, not really, because Millie wasn’t intimidated by intelligence, which was a good thing since everyone at Bletchley was bloody brilliant. There was a girl—she couldn’t have been older than sixteen—in hut four named Lucy who could remember _everything_. A new woman had just been assigned to the hut who could spot patterns and knew mathematics like no one Millie had ever met.

And so while Millie didn’t see any point in trying to figure out exactly what Joan was doing, it didn’t mean that she wasn’t fascinated by a woman who was so clever that she had landed among Britain’s best and brightest.

She saw her chance one evening in the pub. Joan was sitting at a table with Turing when he suddenly jumped up from his seat and dashed out the door. Millie easily slid into his recently vacated seat.

“Does he do that a lot?” she asked conversationally.

“Believe it or not, he’s gotten better.” Joan offered her hand. “Joan Clarke. How do you do?”

“Millie Wollstonecraft.” She shook it. “I’ve been dying to meet you for ages now.”

“Have you? I can’t imagine why.”

“Because of where you are. Because of _who_ you are. Most of us,” Millie waved her hand to show that she meant her and the other Bletchley girls, “are smart, but only in the ‘we’re smart for women’ sense. You, on the other hand, have ascended into the realm of men. You have to admit that’s cause for celebration.”

“I’m not that special. A lot of people have received double firsts in mathematics at Cambridge.”

“Blimey. Is that all? You’re right—nothing impressive at all,” Millie joked. “Although now that I know you’re a Cambridge graduate, I’m afraid I’ll have to leave.”

“That’s rather a shame, as I find you great fun to talk to,” Joan feigned an air of disappointment. “Alan is brilliant, but he isn’t always the best conversation partner, and Hugh and the other boys are hardly any better. One does get so tired of testosterone. But I suppose I can’t possibly be friends with an Oxford woman.”

“I won’t tell your school friends if you don’t tell mine.”

“Agreed.” She looked pleased. “So what did you study at university, Millie Wollstonecraft?”

“Linguistics, mostly.”

“How fascinating! I could never get the hang of other languages myself. I assume you speak German, then.”

“German, and a few others.”

Millie, who wasn’t normally bothered with being modest, refused to tell Joan exactly how many languages she spoke fluently or passably well. When Joan learned that it was upwards of ten, she insisted that Millie stop this nonsense about not being as good as her or any of the other men. Joan’s unassuming air and her generosity made Millie like her all the more, and the two women chatted the evening away.

As the months wore on, although they were quite busy, they still found time to talk and catch up in their down time. Millie couldn’t go into hut eight, but Joan would pop by every now and again to gather papers herself, and sometimes they would walk into town to get groceries together.

Neither of them talked about men much except to complain about particularly misogynistic coworkers. Instead, they talked about the war, about what was being broadcast to the general public and about things only they could access. They talked about missing school friends and inspiring professors. Millie talked about one of the girls in her hut that she was growing fond of, and Joan talked about some of the theorems she’d read about at school but hadn’t had time to really research. Joan didn’t quite understand Millie’s passion for women, and Millie definitely didn’t understand Joan’s passion for maths, but that didn’t matter. They were friends who supported each other even though they didn’t share all the same interests.

Millie was one of the first people Joan told about her engagement to Alan.

Millie was the only person to whom Joan told the whole story of why the engagement was eventually broken.

“He told me he’s a homosexual,” Joan explained, exasperated, on a crisp fall day.

She’d marched right into hut three and told Millie’s supervisor that Millie was needed desperately. The women were now in Joan’s room lying on her bed in stocking feet, looking at the ceiling.

“Golly, did he? That was stupid of him.”

“It wasn’t as if I didn’t already know,” Joan continued. “I did know, or I at least suspected, but I mean, he must’ve known I wasn’t marrying him because I wanted to—you know.”

“I know,” Millie said soberly.

“So I’m not wildly attracted to him, and I’d like to sock him in the nose every once in a while, but that doesn’t mean we’re incompatible. We get on so well. Our minds work the same way and we understand each other. Shouldn’t that be enough?”

“It ought to be. Did you tell him that you didn’t mind?”

“Yes! And then he told me that he’d never really cared for me in any capacity. He said he’d only needed me to—” Joan stopped herself from revealing too much. “To do our work and now he didn’t need me anymore. He told me to leave Bletchley.”

“Gosh, now I’d like to sock him in the nose.”

“Oh, I did.”

“No! Joan!”

“Well, I didn’t punch him, but I definitely gave him a firm slap.”

“Attagirl.”

“I don’t believe him, though,” Joan mused. “I don’t believe he never cared for me. He listened to me. He took my advice. He actually smiled when we talked.”

“Any fool could tell Alan cares about you,” Millie agreed. “They’d only have to see you two together for a minute to see that he values you more than anyone else he interacts with.”

“I’m not heartbroken exactly. I’m mad. I’m confused. I thought we got on so well and then he turned on me and I’m not sure which way is up anymore.”

“You’re not going to leave Bletchley, are you?”

“Of course not! I told him so too.”

“Good! The war effort needs you here, Joan. Don’t let one pigheaded bastard stand between you and the work you’re meant to do.” Millie took her friend’s hand. “And I know I’m not quite as brilliant as Alan Turing, but you know I’m always here to listen to you.”

“You’re a brilliant friend, Millie,” Joan answered, squeezing her hand, “And that’s far more valuable to me than being a brilliant cryptographer or mathematician or linguist.”

If anyone else had said that, Millie would have teased them mercilessly for being a sap. But she knew that Joan was sincere and so instead of laughing, Millie just sat in silence with her brilliant friend, and they enjoyed each other’s company for the rest of the afternoon.


End file.
